If you ever took piano lessons, you had to do five-finger exercises. You played the scales, and played them, and played them....hated it, but you did it, because doing it made the actual music you played later, come out a lot better.
I went and did five-finger exericses at the range today, and I'm convinced this is something I need to do at least weekly from now on.
While I like shooting 9mm and .45 and even my SRH in .44mag, shooting only the "big bore" handguns has caused me to develop some bad habits...worst of them being, jerking the trigger and flinching. The best cure for a flinch, of course, is time with a .22lr. You really feel pretty stupid pretty fast tensing up and preparing for the recoil that....never comes.
(Or I do, anyway). I recently bought a 10/22 to deal with my trigger jerking and flinching on my deer rifle; and so today I went out with the Sig Trailside and my BHP to start addressing the problem with semiautos. I took the Ruger out as well to try out a red-dot scope on it; spent 30 minutes or so plinking and relaxing, then after the next cease-fire, set about to work on the handguns.
And found that the Sig, without its red dot scope, was shooting far left. Far, FAR left.
Stopped, put the red dot scope back on the Sig from which I'd borrowed it, then got back to it. Once I had the scope zeroed again, I picked up the BHP and shot one magazine at 20 yards. The results were mediocre. While everything stayed on the paper, there were a couple of flyers outside the rings 
and only one in the bullseye. Not good. So I went back to the Trailside. I took my time and sent several mags of Winchester SuperX .22 through the Sig. Plink, plink, plink....little recoil (there is some; the Trailside is so light that it does have a little muzzle flip). Relaxed, got into the flow of it.
Then back to the BHP.
Every round stayed inside the green; 10 of the 13 were in the inner green, and three were in the bull. That's better. Back to the Trailside, back to the BHP....kept this up for about an hour, then packed it up and came home. By the end of the day my shots with the BHP were getting a bit raggedy again; fatigue from the heat and humidity just does me in.
But I've certainly convinced myself that it's a set of exercises worth doing regularly, now that I've seen the results even within one practice session.
Just thought I'd pass it along.
Springmom
I went and did five-finger exericses at the range today, and I'm convinced this is something I need to do at least weekly from now on.
While I like shooting 9mm and .45 and even my SRH in .44mag, shooting only the "big bore" handguns has caused me to develop some bad habits...worst of them being, jerking the trigger and flinching. The best cure for a flinch, of course, is time with a .22lr. You really feel pretty stupid pretty fast tensing up and preparing for the recoil that....never comes.
(Or I do, anyway). I recently bought a 10/22 to deal with my trigger jerking and flinching on my deer rifle; and so today I went out with the Sig Trailside and my BHP to start addressing the problem with semiautos. I took the Ruger out as well to try out a red-dot scope on it; spent 30 minutes or so plinking and relaxing, then after the next cease-fire, set about to work on the handguns.And found that the Sig, without its red dot scope, was shooting far left. Far, FAR left.
Stopped, put the red dot scope back on the Sig from which I'd borrowed it, then got back to it. Once I had the scope zeroed again, I picked up the BHP and shot one magazine at 20 yards. The results were mediocre. While everything stayed on the paper, there were a couple of flyers outside the rings and only one in the bullseye. Not good. So I went back to the Trailside. I took my time and sent several mags of Winchester SuperX .22 through the Sig. Plink, plink, plink....little recoil (there is some; the Trailside is so light that it does have a little muzzle flip). Relaxed, got into the flow of it.Then back to the BHP.
Every round stayed inside the green; 10 of the 13 were in the inner green, and three were in the bull. That's better. Back to the Trailside, back to the BHP....kept this up for about an hour, then packed it up and came home. By the end of the day my shots with the BHP were getting a bit raggedy again; fatigue from the heat and humidity just does me in.
But I've certainly convinced myself that it's a set of exercises worth doing regularly, now that I've seen the results even within one practice session.
Just thought I'd pass it along.
Springmom
Can't run, either; I have no ACL in my left knee. 
